6 SEO Tips For Startups

Why is a SEO Optimization?

One year ago, I attended a training course on website building and SEO. Since then, I have been practicing the tips learnt and have managed to learn more practical skills. I thought to share with you the tips I have learnt and how they have been helpful to optimize SEO of my startup website.

SEO is defined as things you do for the pages on website so then they are found by Google and it is shown on top 10 results when searching is done. It is set of practices that make it easier for search engines to find, index, categorize and rank web content.

Searching statistics show that Google handles 34000 searches per second, Yahoo handles 3200 searches per second and Bing handles 927 searches per second. Google captures about 66% of total market searching followed by Yahoo for 17%, Microsoft (owner of Bing) for 11% and others (ask networks and AOL) for 6%.

Why we all care about SEO? Because it basically helps us to bring trafficking to our websites and it will result into generating sale leads.

In this article, I will address the key tips that help startup owners to create trafficking to their websites, increase awareness and help to generate sale leads. What makes this article unique, it is mainly based on my experience, simple and actionable.

Tip 1: Create a victorious website

Purpose & target audiences: Before constructing a website, the purpose of website and audience’s needs must be carefully analyzed. Website must be built to satisfy the purpose of business and meet the expectations of target audiences.

Appearance: A site must be visually appealing, polished and professional. The website design must be easily viewable and usable regardless of the device it is being viewed on (mobile, tablet, desktop).

Content: The site must have a rewarding substance. The content should be informative and relevant. A website is basically built to communicate with stakeholders and transmit useful information to target customers or audiences. Without a content, a website is challenged for success and impact.

Functionality: Every component of your site should work quickly and correctly. Remember that a reader will need to get information quickly and without any errors.

Usability: Your site must be easy to read, navigate and understand. A website should facilitate a personalized user experience that allows for the content and experience to be designed specifically for a particular user.

Tip 2: Make the website searchable

Be aware how SEO works: Search engines have two major functions: crawling and building an index, and providing search users with a ranked list of the websites they’ve determined are the most relevant.

Connectivity: Upload the website to the server (service provider) and connect it with the (URL).

URL: It is acting like an identification account at the internet network and make it active online. Without the URL, the website will have no existence at the internet network or space. You can get it through URL service providers like WordPress, 1&1, GoDaddy, namecheap and many others.To check certification for your URL you can use www.whois.com.

Set up account at Google Search Console: Set up an account at the Google Search Console, Google Analytics. To do so, you follow-up this link Google Search Console.

Ask Google to re-crawl your URL: To do so, you follow this link: Ask for crawl.

Updating: Regular updating for your website.

Set up accounts at Google’s applications: Set up an account at the Google’s applications like, Gmail, YouTube, Google +, Google Search, Google News.

Set up account at social media: Setup an account at social media like, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Paid advertising: Should you advertise in Google’s Adword, your website will be searchable and increasing indexing and listing.

Website trusting: Google can build a trust on your website by looking into historical records, number of visitors & interactions and through external links to your website.

Tip 3: Build a powerful content

Keyword: Use relevant keywords in URL, title, meta description, description, images. Get the right keywords through brainstorming and by using the keyword tools, like Google’s Keyword Planner Google AdWords. Another good source for finding free tools for keyword searching is this link Free Tools For Keyword Searching.

Know your audiences: One of the best advice I have ever received from my earlier mentors that I had to know the target audiences’ needs before writing a blog or kicking off a business project. This golden advice is still valuable and I advise writers to know their target audiences and understand their needs before choosing a topic to write about it.

Rewarding substance: It is obvious to state how important to write on a compelling subject and add substantial value to it. Readers look after actionable tips to apply and capture values.

Title tag: 65-75 characters with using of relevant keywords.

Meta description: 150-160 characters with using of relevant keywords.

Description: 300-500 words for the primary page and can reach to 1200-1500 words for a blog. Recent researches have shown that there is no harms to produce a long description. You set the description of content into paragraphs, each has subtile and specific subject with using of relevant keywords.

Images and videos: Using a relevant images and videos with using relevant keywords for text description.

Consider current events & trends: If you write on a subject that is currently and widely interacted with people in social media, you will probably have more chance to get your work to be viewed and interacted by large social media users. To get more information on current events and trends, you keep your eyes on Google’s News.

Tip 4: Manage relevant links

Why links: Links are useful for the readers as it will optimize searching finding and categorization, increase user experience by providing useful information and simplifying site navigation.

Type of links: Use relevant internal and external links. Importantly, that your content is linked by recognized sites and authorities. The best way to attract recognized sites to link your content is to follow them and interact with their works or have a direct request from them.

Internal links: Are links made within your website.

External links: Are links made from outside and relevant websites or contents.

Others link to your content: Make your content as attractive as possible to big names in social media (i.e. bloggers) and encourage them to link your content with their postings and contents. This will have an immense influence in validating and increase viral of your content.

Authority links: Are links made to your content by public and well trusted domains like governmental institutions. Getting your content linked by authority domains will increase validity and virals.

Tip 5: Reach out

Why reaching out: Reaching out your content is as important as arranging the content itself, because it increases awareness on your content and connects it to target audiences. Another reason for reaching out a content is to get links by big and relevant names in social media. As explained, such links will add validity and viral to your content. Reaching out can be done online (i.e. social media, emails, networks) and offline (face-to-face interactions, PR, TV, radio, newspapers, printings, billboard).

Social media: Use the social media platforms to post your content, as it is considered free, crowded users, accessible and more convenient platforms than other media.

Blogging: Blog on regular basis and on relevant blogging platforms.

Active networking: Network and interact with relevant posts in social media and other networking sites. Beside the social media, I find the Quora as a good platform for gaining and sharing knowledge.

Make your content contagious: I refer to the great book Contagious written by Jonah Berger, summarizing the steps for getting your content contagious (or viral). The contagious steps are referred to as STEPPS. STEPPS stands for Social Currency( a content that viewers would want to re-share or talk about), Triggers ( use relevant and strong triggers in your content to be remembered), Emotion (content should have level of emotion. emotion is the driver for action), Public (content should be public to be known and viewed), Practical Value (content should have a substantial value to be followed) and Storytelling ( content is recommended to be written using a storytelling style). For more information, you please visit my book summary link Summary Book: Contagious by Jonah Berger.